Daily Journal: 19 July

Power to Improve

If I think life I will speak life. If I determine to declare what is good over myself, over others, over situations, I will eventually rejoice and celebrate what I have declared beforehand. If I neglect to determine from what is healthy, I will lack the power to improve and only draw from what is bad. The power to improve begins with the intention of my heart and what I choose to cultivate there.

Luke 6:43-45 (GNT)

“A healthy tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a poor tree bear good fruit. Every tree is known by the fruit it bears; you do not pick figs from thorn bushes or gather grapes from bramble bushes. A good person brings good out of the treasure of good things in his heart; a bad person brings bad out of his treasure of bad things. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Regularly, I am challenged about what I treasure in my heart and what I have stored. The way the Good News Translation words this text clarifies to me that a treasure of good and bad can be found in each heart. A good person will intentionally choose to focus on the good and bring out the goodness that’s been stored there. A bad person will focus on the bad, the negative, the undesired, and bring out that which has been stored there.

If we neglect to focus on the good and determine to store goodness, we naturally default to the squalor that is, even unintentionally, stored in the soul. My intention to store goodness is what produces a healthy tree rather than a poor tree.

I can have days where I seem to be growing a whole bramble bush and can’t step through the tangle, yet I can have other days where I seem to be growing an orchard of figs and I’m handing them around to share.

The question is, what am I producing more of in my heart and what am I choosing to draw from? It's that that will come out.

On the days that I feel my heart is tangled up with bramble bushes, how will I find the figs I have stored? There isn’t only thorns, even though that may be how it feels. If there is a good tree growing I can access good fruit. That’s where the importance of cultivation is found. What do I want to produce? What will I determine to draw from?

I have the power to improve my perspective and pick from the goodness stored in my heart, but I cannot neglect my intention to do so or the bad that has also been stored there will spill out instead.

The more I choose to pick from the goodness stored, the more goodness I store, and the healthier and stronger I become.

I pray we can acknowledge the type of trees we’re cultivating and what our heart is becoming. I pray we will be intentional about developing a good, healthy tree so that our lives will continually develop and produce good, healthy fruit; so much so that on the days where it seems only brambles are growing we can still pick from the goodness we have stored.